start-with-the-park

80 Start with the park
CASE STUDY
Gunpowder Park, Lee Valley
Regional Park, London
103 hectares
Construction period
1999–2004
Base regeneration around arts
Background
The site of Gunpowder Park was used for manufacturing
and testing for the arms industry for almost 100 years.
Lee Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA) bought
the site after large-scale remediation work had been
completed. Rather than simply adding it to the rest of
the adjacent country park, the LVRPA decided to create
a distinct character area. This has been specifically
designed as a site for experimentation and exploration
of the links between the arts and the environment.
The park is now managed by a special partnership
between the LVRPA and Landscape and Arts Network
Services (LANS), a non-profit company that helps to
manage a wide-ranging programme of events and
activities. LANS’s role is both to help with funding and
to facilitate the work itself. The park has been funded
mainly by the LVRPA, with contributions from English
Nature and ODPM.
A wide recognition of the potential of arts and cultureled
regeneration has led to a boom in investment in
museums and arts centres across the UK. Gunpowder
Park represents a unique approach to arts-based
regeneration in a newly created, large green space. The
103-hectare park is not just a place for art installations
but is also being used as a test-bed for artists and
designers to try out new forms of land art and explore
how people interact with the natural world. This research
and development work is feeding into the plans for open
space and how people interpret and respond to different
spaces. The park itself is on the axis of the Thames
Gateway and the London–Stansted–Cambridge–
Peterborough growth corridor. It forms part of the
strategic Lee Valley Regional Park.
Planning and design
LDA Design produced a dramatic new landscape
inspired by and reflecting the site’s heritage. There are
four distinct bioregions, with almost 50,000 new trees,
four kilometres of new hedgerows and seven kilometres
of pathways, which link into local and national networks.
Features include viewing points, an earthwork stage,
wetlands, working arable farmland and wildflower
meadows. The park includes a field station with a
flexible indoor space for art creation and exhibitions.
Outcomes
The site is now open and well used by local people as
a local park. At the same time the park is the source
material for a range of arts projects considering the
physical and social aspects of open space and the
forces of nature. For example, the Bright Sparks project
explores the way in which existing and new open
spaces can be designed in order to be more stimulating
for users. This responds to the risk-averse culture in
public space design and management highlighted by
CABE Space in What are we scared of? The value of
risk in designing public space. Another recent project
enabled local young people to develop their aspirations
for regeneration of the surrounding area if the Olympic